


divine unpunishment

by cosmya



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous Feelings, Angst, Asexuality, Fluff, Gen, Idiots in Love, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Pining, Trope Fic, hand holding, subtlety? I don't know her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-26 17:44:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19773250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmya/pseuds/cosmya
Summary: The world was going to end, and then it didn’t. Somebody has some very creative ideas for how to deal with its saviors.OR, an alternate punishment fic for Aziraphale and Crowley where they are thrust into increasingly ridiculous scenarios that happen to also bring out some Feels.





	divine unpunishment

Aziraphale blinked.

This was not his bookshop.

This was an elevator (a very tiny and rather dingy one, he might add), and it didn’t seem to be moving either which way. In the opposite corner, though it was only about two feet away, Crowley sat with his head slumped to the side, half-dozing.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale adapted the polite but concerned tone of a train attendant waking a passenger who might’ve just missed their stop.

Crowley jerked back to consciousness. “Aziraphale?” he slurred.

“Yes, it’s me,” he replied patiently. “Erm... any idea where we are?”

Crowley stood, rather slowly. He was behaving in a manner that could only be described as mildly hungover. “Yes. Probably an elevator, though I can’t be sure,” he grumbled sarcastically. It seemed that he had already been here a very long time.

“I can see that, but why?” Aziraphale was vaguely aware of himself being annoying, but as Crowley had clearly arrived first, it was only logical to be asking him the questions.

A flicker behind Crowley’s dark sunglasses indicated that he was probably rolling his eyes. “Do you not know?”

“Tell me what?”

“You thought we were going to get off scot-free after all of  _ that _ ?” 

“All of  _ what? _ ”

“The Incident, of course.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said. “Well, maybe.”

“Divine punishment, Aziraphale,” he stated distantly.

Aziraphale fidgeted. What, this? An elevator, albeit not the nicest one, and most certainly not the one at HQ, but still, just an elevator. No hellfire, no screaming. Just him and his favorite person left in this slightly-less-rotten-than-it-could-have-been world.

“Go ahead,” Crowley offered. “Try to leave.”

Aziraphale pushed the  _ door open _ button. Nothing happened. Then he tried to miracle himself out. It produced a faint tinkling noise like distant laughing. “Punishment,” Aziraphale nodded. “Nice of them to put us together for it.”

“Well, that’s the thing,” Crowley said. “I’m not sure they knew we would end up in the same place. Great minds think alike, though.”

Aziraphale nodded. Knowing their respective Authorities, they could be stuck forever. Without the ability to perform miracles, even ones so tiny as opening an elevator door, Aziraphale felt aimless. “How long have you been here?” He considered sitting down, but thought better of it. He didn’t think the tile had been that shade of brown when it was installed.

“I’ve no idea. Long enough to think it’s about time to accept it and-”

With a jolt and a flash of white light, and the dinging of an elevator door, they were gone.

* * *

A new scene took shape around them., Now, they were seated at a small table, surrounded by the homey glow of a subdued, but not deserted, coffee shop. Warm sconces lined the faded robin’s-egg-blue walls and it was quiet enough to hear the contented groan of the espresso machine. The darkened windows to outside suggested it was late. On the table before them were two dainty lattes, complete with hearts drawn in the foam.

Crowley was inexplicably wearing a green polo, a black apron, and a visor. His nametag read  _ Craig.  _ Upon this discovery, his expression became murderous. 

It only softened when another apron-clad barista set a plate of scones down on their table and scurried away. 

Aziraphale carefully took a sip of the latte. It definitely didn’t taste like poison. It was rather delicious, actually. “Was that it? Is it over?” he wondered aloud. Five minutes in an elevator in exchange for thwarting the deaths of billions? That didn’t seem entirely fair.

“I’m not so sure,” said Crowley. 

“Well, I don’t see how this could be punishment. Seems more like your average Saturday to me.”

“Except for this,” Crowley motioned at his odd attire. 

“Er, yes, bit out of your usual garb.”

That being said, Aziraphale didn’t think it was outside the realm of possibility for his friend to have taken up a job; after all, what more did they have to do now? Perhaps  _ he _ was the illogical one for not making plans in the wake of the nonpocalpyse. Still stuck in his ways, puttering away in his bookshop, his comfort zone.

He watched as Crowley downed his latte and surveyed the cafe, lips pursed. They had never been to this particular location before, but it was lovely. The kind of place that just begged you to sit in it for hours, writing a thousand-page novel about spies or detectives or magicians or perhaps people who were just like you, only more attractive and rich and sexually adventurous. Unlike the elevator, they did not seem to be trapped here, or even inconvenienced in any way. Sure, miracles wouldn’t work, but the door was right there.

Aziraphale had no reason to test whether it was locked. The scones were really quite delicious. 

He absentmindedly glanced down at the sudden presence of a small stack of papers in front of Crowley. Crowley noticed them at the same time.

“Interview questions...” he read. “I’m supposed to be interviewing you?”

“Are you?”

“It says I’m to be.”

“Well, I’d love to be considered for the position.”

“Erm...” Crowley trailed off, then decided to play along. “Er, how many years experience do you have with-”

With that same jolt, the cafe disappeared. 

* * *

They were back on the bustling London street. Everything was ordinary, especially the dense clouds threatening rain low above their heads. 

Well, everything except the fact that Aziraphale’s body was standing in front of him, looking positively bewildered. 

“What the Hell do you think you’re doing?” the Aziraphale imposter said. It was still very odd to hear that word in his own voice.

“I-I don’t know. Is that-” he stuttered. The words came out all funny, like it wasn’t his ordinary voice. If he didn’t know better, he’d think he sounded like... “Crowley?”

“No,  _ that’s _ me!” Not-Aziraphale argued, pointing directly at him.

The angel looked down. Indeed, he was Crowley. Or, rather, he had taken on his form.

So they were not back to normal. Nor did their punishment stop only at placing them in strange and possibly dodgy locations. Apparently, confusing the living daylights out of them was also in the cards.

“Are you alright?” Aziraphale asked instinctively. “How do you feel?”

Crowley-as-Aziraphale wrinkled his nose. “Fine, I ‘spose.” It was unclear whether he was more uncomfortable at being in Aziraphale’s body, or being outside his own. “The same, I think.”

“Me, too.” Aziraphale swallowed and mentally checked each of his organs. They were all in perfect non-working order. “Do you think we’re meant to feel different?”

“Knowing Them? Probably.”

“Do you, though?”

“I don’t think so. Maybe a bit... overdressed. The bow tie isn’t really my style.  _ Tartan _ , ugh.”

“Yes, but on the inside?” Aziraphale chose to ignore the bow tie thing. “More angelic?”

Crowley paused for a moment. Then, he said, “Certainly not.”

There was something to be said about that, he was sure. “Not much of a punishment either, is this? I don’t feel more dastardly. They’re not very good at this.”

“And that surprises you... why?”

“It doesn’t. Actually...” he narrowed his eyes. He could vaguely feel himself straining to remember something. Like some sort of plan him and Crowley had come up with in the wake of the nonpocalypse. Something about maybe needing to switch bodies to avoid being killed at some point. He couldn’t quite wrap his head around it.

“Actually what?”

“Nothing, I guess.” Aziraphale didn’t have anything more to add to that. Luckily, he didn’t need to, because as quickly as they had swapped, they swapped back. 

And the scene changed again.

* * *

They were no longer on the lively London street, but now in none other than a swanky, frosted-glass walled office, complete with generic wood-patterned furniture and highly confusing grayscale graphs hung as wall decor. Aziraphale was sitting behind a stately desk, dressed in a smart white linen suit, as if he were leaving for Tahiti once the clock ticked five. The slim silver computer in front of him had a harshly worded document with a legal letterhead on it.

“Well, this is odd,” Crowley carped. His suit was of a much more traditional fabric, though it was all black, and he was not wearing a tie. He stood, arms folded, looking out at the employees working frantically in the open-plan office floor.

“I don’t mind it,” replied Aziraphale. He was glad to be back in his own body, and quite liked the choice of linen. He made a mental note to obtain a suit like this once all of this was over. 

Crowley’s scowl, still, was deep. He seemed much less amused. Perhaps this actually was punishment for him. He sighed and took the seat facing Aziraphale’s desk. “What are we doing here, Aziraphale?”

Aziraphale raised his eyebrows and looked again at the computer. “Well, it says that the company has found sufficient evidence of your misconduct, to the tune of,” his eyes bulged slightly, “ _ forty million pounds? _ ”

Despite this bombshell, Crowley looked nothing but bored. “No, I mean in the general sense. It’s odd to me. Cycling through these random situations. No easily discernible pattern. It’s bothering me.”

Aziraphale swallowed. Odd, yes, but he hadn’t really been minding it. “Do you really think it’s that bad? I mean, we could be in the throes of torture right now.”

“Are we not?”

“No,” Aziraphale answered firmly, a little bit hurt.

“Feels like it.”

It wasn’t entirely obvious what Crowley meant to tell him by this. “Well, Sartre did say-” Aziraphale started to offer, but Crowley cut him off.

“Oh, leave Sartre out of this. I’m not talking about  _ you _ ,” he practically spat. “I’d just really like my free will back, to put it plainly.”

_ That would do it _ , thought Aziraphale. “Well, maybe that’s the problem, my dear,” he said. He folded his hands on the desk. “Obviously They didn’t appreciate what we did with that ability. Perhaps this is some sort of test.”

Crowley narrowed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. The air conditioning kicked on, though it was already bone-chillingly cold in the office. “You have a point,” he muttered.

“Is it really the worst thing in the world to follow orders again?” Aziraphale asked kindly.

The look on Crowley’s face (practically murderous, with a pinch of whiny thrown in) answered  _ that _ question. 

“If it gets us out of this?” Aziraphale continued with a gentleness he usually reserved for dying children. He hadn’t seen Crowley this agitated over a non-Adam-related-thing in centuries. Though he supposed that this, too, was indirectly Adam-related.

There was a crash as the desk chair fell to the floor, and Crowley stormed from the room.

Aziraphale sighed deeply and begin penning a reply to Legal.

* * *

He had barely pressed a key before lo, he was gone. Instead of the shiny office, he was back in his bookshop, and everything seemed fine.

Only it wasn’t.

It was very quickly clear how this was different. Settled comfortably in Aziraphale’s mind, as certain as he was certain of realit- well, let’s just say he was very certain, was the knowledge that Crowley was unmistakably and irreparably  _ dead _ . 

Aziraphale was alone, to the core. He would have preferred to believe that Crowley had simply vanished, and he would have kept on doing so, if not for the memories. Concrete memories. They had been there, in the office building, having the mildest of arguments, and then a missing sort of scene had inserted itself into Aziraphale’s head, one where they were called Downstairs. 

In the most dramatic of ways (as he would have wanted, Aziraphale maintained), Crowley had been executed, and that was that. Aziraphale was here, still, to walk the earth alone. For as long as it might live.

He sighed. He felt a new sort of emptiness. Death was not a totally foreign concept to him; there had been countless humans he had enjoyed and respected throughout the years who had come and gone.

This was quite different.

This was a life sentence to loneliness.

A life sentence of imbalance. Of everything always being slightly off, no matter what he did. Of growing self-hatred and regret, of doubting whether saving the world had really been worth it if  _ this _ was what it would beget.

And of wondering how he, too, could fall, so that he would have a more merciful master to answer to. 

Aziraphale was no stranger to tears of joy, but whatever was stirring in him now was the furthest thing from that. He left the bookshop, and he didn’t lock the door. What was the point?

Crowley’s apartment was still there, and untouched, a pristine museum exhibit for Aziraphale and Aziraphale alone. Even the plants were as healthy and beautiful as they’d ever been, like Crowley had been terrorizing them from wherever demons go after they are purged from existence. It was midmorning, and the sun was shining.

He sat down at his regular spot on the couch and watched the snake plant sway slightly in the breeze from the open window. Crowley had strict rules against him ever touching them.

Aziraphale decided that breaking that rule might be the very best way of establishing whether some sort of beyond-the-veil ghostly metaphysical communication was possible.

Feeling guilty despite himself, he reached out a hand and stroked the leaf. It immediately wilted under his touch. And then the wilt traveled down the whole plant, and it started to shrivel, and then all of the  _ rest _ of the plants were doing it too, and before Aziraphale could say  _ oops _ the sophisticated planters held nothing but dirt and dust.

Nothing that could be described as Crowley’s wrath came to him. In fact, Aziraphale found that he felt nothing at all. 

Sadness, fear, guilt...that all was old hat. Nothing at all? Well, that was new.

Once, he had been a very good cultivator of painlessness. There was simply no reason in feeling the thing at all. It was just as easy to choose not to. Aziraphale had always been an optimist. He found light in the darkest of places. He had faith and hope. He was controlled and careful with his emotions, tending to them as lovingly as Crowley did his plants.

And he had always been very good at it. By all means, he should be able to do it again. There was only one problem. There was no emotion left to feel.

This was neither a good nor a bad thing, just a thing, Aziraphale understood. Emptiness could not be modified, or turned off and back on, or papered over until it went away. It could only be filled. He laid back and closed his eyes.

* * *

The leather couch underneath him had started to feel strange. Had he really been laying there that long?

He let his hands drop from their place on his chest and felt sand underneath him. How long did it take for leather to disintegrate into sand?

And... had the building been demolished? The sun felt awfully bright under his closed eyelids. And the air awfully hot for London. Shame on those humans, doing exactly  _ nothing _ to halt the warming of their planet, and now it feels like Tahiti when it should be mittens-and-overcoat weather, and...

There was a distant gasp. “Aziraphale?”

Aziraphale could have sworn he felt his heart restarting.

He jolted upright. London was gone. Crowley was back. And from the looks of it, they just might be in Tahiti.

Aziraphale sprang to his feet and spun to take in the scene: a tiny sandbar island with a few palm trees, surrounded by crystal-clear turquoise water. The remains of a small wooden vessel littered the beach. Nothing but blue skies all around. It was idyllic.

And then, there was Crowley. The demon was approaching over the top of a nearby dune, wearing what could only be described as pirate garb, complete with puffy, barely-buttoned shirt. He was smiling; Aziraphale was well aware that the look of surprise on his own face had reached comical levels. With a wink, Crowley handed him a drink. Naturally, it was in a coconut, and complete with a lime-green paper parasol. 

Crowley sipped his own lazily. His parasol was orange. “Cheers.”

When Aziraphale finally found his voice, he exclaimed loud enough to scare the pelican watching them from their little shipwreck. “I-I thought - I  _ knew _ you were dead!”

“Are you going to ask me if this is Heaven?” Crowley asked sarcastically, but the way he smirked suggested that he was actually truly happy to see his friend. There was no sign of his short-tempered annoyance from the office building.

“I saw you executed. I went to your flat, I... you...” Aziraphale stammered. 

“And I you. But we’re both here, aren’t we?”

Absent of any more words that could express his gratitude that Crowley was not, in fact, dead, and all of that had been a terrible nightmare, Aziraphale went in for a bone-crushing hug. At first, Crowley hesitated. But then he relaxed and squeezed Aziraphale even more tightly. It was a minor miracle that their drinks didn’t spill.

Once he felt that they had finally exchanged enough non-verbal emotion, Aziraphale stepped back. “I can’t explain to you how it felt. The last one, I mean. Losing you. All I know is that I had never felt it before, and I never want to feel it again.” 

Crowley took another sip from his own neon-pink straw and nodded slowly. “You don’t have to tell me. However you felt, I promise you I felt worse.” He chuckled lightly. “Drink!” he urged Aziraphale with free-flowing enthusiasm. “It’s over. If they do it to us again, we’ll be ready.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever be ready for that,” Aziraphale answered, but he followed Crowley’s order and took a hearty chug from the coconut. Rum. Well, rum and the tiniest hint of pineapple. Scrumptious. “So... what do you think we do here?”

“What do we always do.” Crowley lifted his coconut in a toast. “We drink.”

“We drink,” agreed Aziraphale. And they did.

Many uncountable hours later, night was falling on the island. It transpired that the place was some sort of hidden pirate stash, because buried in the sand around the trees were enough rum-containing treasure chests to get two immortals drunk. They made a small driftwood fire and lounged around it, watching the stars come out and competing for who could finish their tenth bottle first. 

And, naturally, they were discussing existence. 

Aziraphale was in a morbid mood. “Can we actually die, d’you think? By all means we shouldn’t be able to.”

“Yes,” urged Crowley. “I’ve killed my own kind, you know that. And us demons are made of the same stuff as you lot. Ergo...”

The fire crackled; Aziraphale threw another log on. They only had a few more. “But don’t you think it’d be just like this?” He gestured to the flames. “We can die, yes, but... don’t we always seem to come back? Time goes on, and we resurface.” He was having a difficult time contemplating the concept of nonexisting. They’d had a lot of rum.

Crowley mused on this for a moment. “’S the difference between death and immortality?”

“How do you mean?” Aziraphale took another swig. It was starting to taste rather sour.

“If there’s no end in sight. No war to avoid. The horizon keeps on moving.”

“I’m not sure I follow,” Aziraphale said between hiccups.

Crowley laid back and looked at the sky. The stars were in all the wrong places. “Forgive me, not in the best state to explain it right now. But if we have nothing to look forward to, no long-term plans, then why do we do anything at all? What’s the rush?”

Immediately, Aziraphale knew the answer. “Because most don’t have that luxury. The humans obviously don’t, bless them. And we have a responsibility to them.”

“I guess you’re right.” 

“I am always right.”

“You are right, in this case and this case alone.”

Aziraphale ignored this and continued. “We could leave them be. They’d get on without us. But then what would we do? Would you want that, Crowley?” He finished the tenth bottle. He didn’t get up to find an eleventh.

“You know I wouldn’t.”

“Then you’ll have to keep on being selfless.” 

“Is it not sel _ fish? _ If I’m entertaining myself by interfering with their matters. Seems pretty selfish to me.”

“I think that’s a matter of perspective.”

Crowley nodded, though it contained a note of resentment. “You’ve got it all figured out, haven’t you?”

The statement made Aziraphale vaguely uncomfortable. “I most certainly haven’t.”

To the angel’s surprise, Crowley didn’t snap back. He squeezed his eyes shut, opened them, and then looked over to Aziraphale. “If you ever do, would you tell me?”

There was nothing Aziraphale could do except smile. He extricated his hand from Crowley’s and stood up, a little wobbly. “Come on. We’d better get off this island.”

Crowley didn’t follow him. He looked distinctly apprehensive. “You’re not worried about...?”

“What’s coming next? I cannot possibly imagine it being worse than what we’ve already been through. And Upstairs will run out of ideas soon enough. We just need to jump through their hoops faster than they can put them out.” 

The boat was in no floating shape, but that was fine. It was now apparent enough that intention alone was enough to change the scene. 

(Or, if that didn’t work, they could swim.)

“And you don’t think Downstairs might be more imaginative?”

“Doubt it,” answered Aziraphale, “we’re all made of the same stuff.” He stuck out his hand and pulled Crowley up.

They walked into the waves, and they were gone.

* * *

Aziraphale felt... different. Towards Crowley, in particular. It wasn’t a bad different. He wasn’t actually entirely sure that it was different at all. 

But he was very sure that, given the chance, he would want them to spend every possible moment together. 

It was quite a lovely feeling, one he hoped Crowley could feel, too. He doubted it was even possible, though. They barely knew each other. Crowley was just another person in a few of his classes. They had spoken a few times, but it was really only when Crowley wanted the answers to the homework. Aziraphale had always declined as a matter of principle.

But clearly something had changed this morning, because if Crowley asked him to take entire courses for him, he would do it.

Aziraphale carefully locked the door to his dormitory and walked quickly to class. It was a brisk winter’s day, and the semester was just getting into swing. Quietly, he entered a dark stone building that hadn’t been powerwashed in far too long.

The lecture hall was mostly empty; Aziraphale tended to arrive early. He sat near the front, but turned anxiously every time he heard the door open. Crowley was one of those types that you couldn’t predict when he would actually show up. He would be the model student for four days and then not show up for weeks at a time. It made it very difficult to talk to him and possibly ask if he was doing anything later that evening.

The belltower outside dinged and the professor entered (Crowley did not. He was still absent). She announced that they would be assigned mandatory study partners for the semester. 

Aziraphale nearly jumped from his seat when his was announced. 

It was very odd, and he knew there must be some funny business at play, because the next few weeks passed in a blur. Crowley attended every class.  _ And _ every one of his Monday night study sessions with Aziraphale. The time they spent in the library was entirely dedicated to studying. 

Well, for Crowley it was (he often remarked that this was the most focused he had ever been). Aziraphale mostly sat there, staring at his study partner, wondering which combination of the words “would”, “you”, “go out”, “with”, “me”, and “sometime” would make him sound the least like a psychopath. Aziraphale was the top of his class, and even he couldn’t figure it out.

So he kept it to studying. The semester ended. Crowley texted him after finals were over to tell him that, thanks to him, he’d done better than ever before. 

This made Aziraphale feel a sort of way.

The summer started, and he was very alone. He was doing research for one of his professors while everybody else was probably in Spain or something, having fun. Normally, he would be fine with this, if not much more than fine; the academic life suited him. 

But studying was not very fun when it didn’t involve someone flicking almonds at you every few minutes and writing rude jokes in the margins of your notes that you let them borrow.

It was a very exhausting day in late June, and Aziraphale was growing restless. Thinking it might solve his problems, he decided to work on his papers on a different floor of the university library. He was not expecting it to work. He kept getting distracted by the thought of Crowley and what he might be doing with his holiday. Definitely something very fun and cool. Aziraphale had never thought it fair to describe himself as fun  _ or _ cool, but he’d taught Crowley a lot, so maybe Crowley could show him how. Probably not. There were no grades involved with that sort of thing.

He resigned himself to typing away; even the sound of the keyboard was annoying to him. Everything was. It was like he was sick, and the more he thought about his sickness, the worse it got. What had happened to him?

He put his head in his hands and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to drown out the world. It was ineffective. So, with a sigh, he pulled off his noise-cancelling headphones and stared deeply into the laptop screen, willing it with all of his brainpower to write his paper for him.

“I thought I might find you here.”

Aziraphale nearly had a heart attack.

He whipped around in his seat and heard his spine popping. And then he froze. Standing there was none other than his study partner. 

“Crowley? W-what are you doing here?” he stammered.

“Oh, you know. This is just where I like to hang out. Me and the books.” He shifted uncomfortably, knowing that his joke wasn’t very funny. “Just kidding. I came to see you.”

Aziraphale’s heart, now restarted fully, was pumping away at light-speed. “Why?” he asked, trying to sound chill and not at all suspicious. Maybe Crowley was taking summer classes and he simply needed help.

“I, uh...” Crowley trailed off nervously and ran his fingers through his hair. Then, very quickly, he said, “do you want to go get an ice cream with me?”

Words failed Aziraphale. No, that wasn’t it. He just didn’t trust himself to say them in a manner appropriate for a library.

So he nodded. Albeit very vigorously. 

The scene melted around them.

* * *

“Well,” remarked Aziraphale. “This seems unusually normal.” They were walking in St. James’ Park, like they always did. 

Crowley agreed. He was also acting very normal.

It was a bright but brisk day. The attachés of various nationalities were feeding the ducks, like they always did. The ducks were listening and cultivating their palettes, like they always did.

Aziraphale realized that he had some brioche in his hand, so they headed towards a tiny pond to toss it in the vague direction of the ravenous ducks. They stopped at the bank. Wistfully, he looked out across the dark pond, absently throwing the whole loaf in. And then, he promptly did a double-take.

Standing directly across from them, not ten meters away, were their exact doppelgängers. 

Only they were not quite exact. The other Aziraphale and Crowley sported jet-black wings.

Aziraphale looked over at Crowley, panicked. He looked just as frightened.

The not-Crowley leaned over to the not-Aziraphale and they giggled at something inaudible. Then a jogger passed behind them and Aziraphale snapped his fingers. A large pebble materialized instantly in front of her foot and she tripped, flying across the cement. This made the doppelgängers laugh even more. When the jogger got up to see what had happened, the doppelgängers vanished.

The real Crowley turned to Aziraphale and started to whisper, “What the-” before he was rudely interrupted by the doppelgängers springing into existence directly in front of them.

“Hello,” they said in unison, as if this were The Shining or something. (Crowley had made him watch it, okay?)

Naturally, the real Crowley and Aziraphale said nothing. They might have screamed a little, though.

“Have we met?” the fake Crowley asked. His voice was identical to the real thing. He was wearing not sunglasses, but regular, clear-lensed glasses with shiny black frames. He still had his snake eyes, but they were almost pure white.

“No, but thanks for the offer,” the real Crowley responded. He looked genuinely scared.

“Pleasure to meet you.” The doppelgänger stuck out his hand. Crowley didn’t take it. 

The doppelgänger Aziraphale (who was even wearing tartan!) said nothing. In fact, he was staring at them with a look in his eyes that the real Aziraphale had definitely never seen in the mirror. 

Not-Crowley elbowed his friend casually. “Where are your manners, Azzie?”

‘Azzie’ smirked dangerously. “Evil needs no manners, dear.” He then wound his hand sinuously around that of the demon who probably went by Crowwie.

Aziraphale could not stand for this any longer. “I’m sorry, but did you say  _ evil? _ ”

“Oh yes. Quite so.” As if to prove it, he threw another conjured piece of bread to a duck. Immediately after taking it, the duck sank like a stone and did not resurface.

Crowley lifted his finger at his doppelgänger, agitated. “So does that mean  _ you’re _ supposed to be pure goodness?”

“Indubitably,” Good-Crowley responded.

“Then why’d you laugh when that woman tripped?”

‘Crowwie’ looked at him like he was the stupidest being on Earth. “Well, she wasn’t doing any good, was she? No humans do, as I’m sure you know. Terrible plague on the environment.”

This was an unconvincing argument. “But you just killed a duck. What did it do, blow up a nuclear reactor?”

‘Crowwie’ just shrugged and beamed at them. His eyes above that wide toothy smile unsettled Aziraphale to the core. 

He took Crowley’s hand. “I think we’ll be going,” he said, and turned away. This was  _ not right _ . They walked as quickly as they could away from the pond, hoping this would end soon.

“Are you sure?” the evil voice said. Not-Aziraphale was leaning against the north gate. In his right hand was a flaming sword.

Aziraphale shook his head quickly, trying to rid himself of this nightmare. They turned and headed for the other gate. Crowley was walking even more quickly than he was.

They reached the south side of the park and stopped abruptly. This gate was closed. Not-Crowley sat on one of the stone pillars flanking it, eating an apple. He finished it and threw it, with shocking finesse, directly into the nearest compost bin a hundred meters away.

“I don’t think you’re going anywhere,” he hissed.

Crowley took Aziraphale’s arm and spun him around so they could whisper. “I have an idea.”

“An idea?”

“Well, I don’t want to go anywhere near that flaming sword. What if it actually harms us?”

Aziraphale thought this was a good point. “Yes, so what’s your idea?”

“Have you noticed how they acted around each other?” Crowley asked, keeping his voice down.

Aziraphale nodded, thinking it was probably a better idea to not put into words what he was thinking. 

“Well, what if we acted... not like that? What if we pretended to get into a fight or something? Throw them off their rhythm.”

“Hmm,” Aziraphale hummed. “It’s worth a shot. Do you want to do the honors?”

“I’d be proud to,” he answered. He took a step back and puffed himself up like a bird, raising his voice so that all of London could hear it. “And it’s  _ your _ fault for getting us here in the first place! None of this was my idea! You were trying to be  _ good _ and-”

“Good? I was doing the right thing!” yelled Aziraphale. This was actually sort of fun. “It was you who ruined it all! I can’t believe I  _ ever _ called you my friend!”

Crowley shook his finger at him. “You were never my friend! I hope you go straight back to Heaven after this is over!”

“I never want to see you again!”

“Good!” 

They turned their backs on each other and walked in opposite directions in a huff. Hopefully, they had done a good enough job. Aziraphale almost wanted to laugh, it seemed so ridiculous. He stomped away, determined to look angry.

The doppelgängers were back at the pond, heads together. They were shaking their heads with pitying expressions on their faces, like disappointed Olympic judges.

Aziraphale paused and looked back for Crowley behind him, just to make sure he was still headed away. 

  
He was not. He had stopped too, and was looking directly at Aziraphale. He cracked a smile, and all went black.

* * *

The room was small and dark. A few embers glowed in the fireplace. It seemed to be a sort of bedroom, but it wasn’t either of theirs. There was only one bed, and both Aziraphale and Crowley were in it.

They were both in their nightclothes, and a few inches too close to each other for Aziraphale to write it off as the product of an unusually drunken night. And they were both awake.

Try as he might, Aziraphale couldn’t forget what he’d felt towards Crowley earlier that strange, strange day in the university library. If it even was a day, as that time had actually taken several months. Time was weird; regardless, it had been Something. The memory sat very dense in his stomach. The irony of that knowledge and the things it might do (ahem, try to do) to tempt him was not lost on him. 

He coughed lightly, and decided to clear the air. They were sharing a bed, for something’s sake. “Do you think we’re supposed to...?”

“Erm... if we are, they clearly don’t know us very well,” was Crowley’s response. Something in his voice made Aziraphale suspect, however, that he hadn’t forgotten his own emotional hijacking. 

They couldn’t exactly deny how The Universe had chosen to position them, though.

“This can’t be right. This doesn’t seem like something... well, like a punishment. Or something that Upstairs would even come up with,” Aziraphale assured himself.

“Unless...”

“Unless we’re here for opposite reasons. Are you feeling particularly...”

“No, I don’t think so.”

Aziraphale felt that he was onto something, though. “It could make sense. I could be here to resist temptation.” Disregarding the fact that he did not, in fact, feel tempted to do much of anything beyond laying there peacefully. “And you... you, to do whatever the opposite of that is. You know, the tempting.”

Crowley relaxed against Aziraphale’s shoulder. “I have no orders to do as such,” he said officially.

“Well, then, it appears that we are at an impasse.”

“That it does.”

It was odd, laying like this. It wasn’t something they had done before, nor something Aziraphale had ever really thought to do. It was a bit like having a very large and vaguely slithery dog nestled against you. Not that Crowley was slithery in a literal way, but Aziraphale felt it nonetheless. Knowledge and memory, you know.

Despite all of this, it was irresistibly warm and cozy. And nowhere in Aziraphale’s mind was the desire to leave.

Crowley sighed. “This is... nice, though, don’t you think?” he asked.

“I certainly don’t mind it.” Aziraphale liked the way his breath made Crowley’s hair flutter.

“I don’t see why it has to be... like that. If that’s what they’re expecting.”

“Not that there would be anything wrong with that,” Aziraphale added quickly, not wishing to offend. “But I’m fine like this.”

The dying fire popped and Crowley nodded gently. Hopefully, this was not a sign that their time was nearly up. “Dare I say it, Aziraphale, but this might be my favorite one so far.”

Aziraphale agreed. “Mm. Maybe this is not divine punishment, but reward.”

“Serves us right.”

“Mm. You know, you can sleep if you want. I’ll try not to wake you up.”

“I’d like that.”

* * *

The time between Crowley waking and now was like a dream. The middle part was entirely absent, and the beginning and end were fuzzy. And even those Aziraphale was not quite sure about.

All he knew was that they were at the Ritz and had just sat down to dinner.

“This is more like it,” remarked Crowley. “Do you think...” he looked up nervously and lowered his voice, “do you think that was it? It’s all over?”

Aziraphale, too, looked around. Everything looked conspicuously normal. “I think so.”

“I think so, too.” Crowley wrinkled his nose. “That last one was...”

“It was something,” Aziraphale agreed, as if they were talking about an especially strong thunderstorm that had come through the previous night. He had little else to say on it at the time. He felt oddly hungry, and unprepared for a deep and potentially difficult conversation about feelings and whatever they might or might not be.

Crowley nodded; he seemed just as unwilling to delve further when the prospect of good food and wine was so near. 

So they sat in awkward silence until the waiter came to take their orders. It was for the best. It confounded Aziraphale as to why anybody ever talked about serious and/or emotional subjects without alcoholic assistance. 

Thankfully, the wine came quickly. Practically drunk already with relief, Aziraphale swirled the burgundy liquid around in the glass and held it up to his nose.

It reeked of, for lack of a better word, a basement.

He looked up. Crowley was making a perplexed face at his own glass like it had suddenly transformed into a rabbit. Dreading the worst, Aziraphale took a sip. It was not just basement, it was rotting-dead-rabbit-in-a-basement.

Refusing to believe that the rancid wine was a sign of worse things to come, he flagged down the waiter. He felt somewhat sick. He asked for another bottle (a different one, of course).

The second one was worse.

The third, worse yet.

They did not request a fourth.

“It’s fine,” Crowley said, clearly convinced that it was  _ not _ fine. “Maybe their cellar had a temperature issue or something while we were away. Look, here’s our food.”

The appetizers looked normal. Tentatively, Aziraphale took a bite of a dainty crab cake.

He spit it out, appalled. He’d never spit out food in his life. “Crowley, this is  _ not _ right.”

“No,” Crowley agreed. He made a little look of surrender and his frown twisted into a half-smile. “This is awful. Can we go back to the desert island?”

“Do you actually want me to try miracling us back there?” He would do it.

“No. But someday.”

The sound of the busy restaurant buzzed like a fly in Aziraphale’s ear. “Someday,” he echoed. He wasn’t quite able to wipe away his disappointment.

Crowley reached across the table and put his hand on Aziraphale’s. “Hey. It’s fine.”

“Clearly it’s not. What d’you think is the key for getting us out of this one?” Aziraphale stared into the tablecloth. Crowley squeezed his hand harder.

“I don’t think we ought to worry about that,” he said gently. 

“Then what do we do?”

“Aziraphale,” he said with a little more force, “we wait. We sit here, and we enjoy each other’s company. I mean. That’s all I really want to do.”

Slowly, Aziraphale lifted his gaze. He felt his lip quivering slightly. “You’re sure?”

“As sure as I am of anything.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

They did not bother eating any more of the horrendous food, and the waiter clearly understood that they were having a moment. Finally, Aziraphale felt like he was ready to accept all of it. “I still think we should probably talk about this someday. You know, all the rest of what happened. The punishment. Or un-punishment. All of it. What we did. What we’ve said.”

“Oh, I agree,” said Crowley. “But I’d prefer it if we did it at the  _ actual _ Ritz. This place sucks.” 

“Tomorrow for lunch?”

“Meet you at twelve.”

* * *

It was twelve, and Crowley was nowhere to be seen. Aziraphale frowned to himself. He had been certain Crowley would show up. 

He forced himself not to be too angry (they had been through a lot) and called him. He picked up on the fourth ring.

“Where are you?” asked Aziraphale. So much for not sounding angry. “We were supposed to be meeting.”

Crowley had a distinct air of grogginess. “Were we?”

“Yes. We specifically said so yesterday.”

“I remember no such thing.”

Aziraphale’s frown deepened. Surely Crowley would remember. After the Ritz, they’d gone home, and had an  _ actual  _ meal together, and possibly re-enacted some of the scene from the firelit bedroom, and then... then, Aziraphale didn’t know. Something had obviously changed.

“I’m sorry, old friend,” Crowley continued casually. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. Give me ten seconds, though, and I’ll be there.”

Sure enough, ten seconds later on the dot, the Bentley pulled up and out emerged Crowley, looking the same as ever. 

Aziraphale blinked. Crowley had gotten here in ten seconds. He did not live ten seconds away driving at a legal, nor even humanly possible, speed. At no time during their punishment had they had the ability to do anything remotely supernatural. That meant...

A smile broke out over Aziraphale’s face.

“Happy to see me?” Crowley asked, somewhat suspiciously.

“Don’t you see? It’s over!” exclaimed Aziraphale, abandoning all sense of subtlety.

“What’s over?”

“What do you mean, what’s over? You were there, we were both...” Crowley looked puzzled. “You mean... have you forgotten it all?”

Puzzlement shifted to worry. “Forgotten what?”

So he had. A bittersweet certainty flooded Aziraphale’s stomach. In spite of it, though, he grinned. 

“What?” Crowley asked. “Are you going to tell me what the  _ heavens _ you’re talking about?”

Aziraphale considered this. Then he nodded. “Yes, but we’re going to need some wine. Good wine. And we’d better order at least three courses. This could take a while.”

**Author's Note:**

> many, many thanks to theinkwell33 for making me read this Gosh Darn book, and then start writing THIS for it, and then read that Gosh Darn script book (yes, I started writing before I finished it, which made editing a hoot), and then putting lots of time and love into betaing it. please go read her GO works, they're way better than mine :)


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